Ive broke it !

[pistonbroke]

Thought I would give IE8 + SP3 a try , should have known better    

Downloaded it and the instal failed ,  then the programme  automatically deleted but when I re booted Windows tries to load but wont run .

Apparently the file hal.dll is missing or corrupted  

anyone know how to fix this without using too big a spanner  

Ps its a HP desktop with a partition for recovery (no disk)  

I need to keep the stuff thats on the HDD .

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

Try starting in safe mode and using system restore to go back to before the catastrophe? That's the extent of my knowledge I'm afraid.

BTW, how you doin' this without a computer?

[Blatman]

Put your Windows CD in and copy the hal.dll from the cd in to the appropriate file on the hard drive.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Ps its a HP desktop with a partition for recovery (no disk)  

I need to keep the stuff thats on the HDD .

Keep up Blatters    

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

First question, can you boot up the PC in safe mode, (press F8 while it's starting up)?

[pistonbroke]

First question, can you boot up the PC in safe mode, (press F8 while it's starting up)?

wont boot at all in any mode available .

according to HP Help and support

here

i've tried re building the file as they suggest but the PC cant find the boot.ini file

searched the HDD and boot.ini appears to be missing

the hal.dll is a driver is a critical file required for windows boot and unique to my model HP Pavillion .

I have tried to create a recovery CD from DOS but it wont let me do this because  a recovery disk set has been produced previously and your only allowed one go.

presume ive done this in the past but if so I think the bin man collected them in a loft clear out about 4 years ago.  

Thinking my solution is another hdd with windows xp loaded on and connect my existing hdd as "slave" so i can recover my files , family pics, history and etc.

[Blatman]

If you have another PC to use to drive a caddy, whip the HDD out of the dead machine, hook it up to the caddy and install the hal.dll and whatever else needs doing and then put it back in to the computer.

According to my HP laptop, hal.dll resides in two places...

C\WINDOWS\system32

and

C\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\download\dd9ab5193501484cf5e6884fa1d22f9e

It's also gotta be worth looking at Microsoft Knowledgebase for SP3 and HP issues. You can't have been the first to have this happen.

And when you get it back, remove SP3 and replace with SP2. Neither of my machines has SP3, and after participating in a project to roll out SP3 to a reasonably large network, I'm in no hurry to "upgrade". SP3 was (and maybe still is) pretty good at trashng computers, especially laptops...

[John Williams (Panda) - Joint Manchester AO]

my 2 penth... although it says hal.dll its not

can you get to a command prompt? if so run

run chkdsk c: /p

if not pm me and i'll get you a disk.....

trust me i'm an IT engineer!!!

cheers

john

[pistonbroke]

Thanks for that John , ive run chkdsk but not with those perameters so will try again and let you know how it goes  

[pistonbroke]

If you have another PC to use to drive a caddy, whip the HDD out of the dead machine, hook it up to the caddy and install the hal.dll and whatever else needs doing and then put it back in to the computer.

According to my HP laptop, hal.dll resides in two places...

C\WINDOWS\system32

and

C\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\download\dd9ab5193501484cf5e6884fa1d22f9e

It's also gotta be worth looking at Microsoft Knowledgebase for SP3 and HP issues. You can't have been the first to have this happen.

And when you get it back, remove SP3 and replace with SP2. Neither of my machines has SP3, and after participating in a project to roll out SP3 to a reasonably large network, I'm in no hurry to "upgrade". SP3 was (and maybe still is) pretty good at trashng computers, especially laptops...

I have access to another PC but need to wait untill HID is out shopping  

It isnt a HP, so not sure if the files i need are on there.  

I'm thinking of buying a new to me HDD and a copy of win xp so in future I can use /repair any problems independant of HP , hopefully I can then copy my files over to the new HDD  

Edit to update

Just found this , highlights the problem with some suggested solutions .......

microsoft

looks like I need a recovery disk  

Calling Mr Williams (put that guitar down and check your PM)